Editor's Blog

With both transport and education strikes today, how are you coping - as an individual and as a business? Wondering if there’s likely to be much of an impact, or whether you’ve now got systems in place for such disruption and will hardly notice?

A few social media feeds have prompted me to issue a reminder that you have until Sunday 2 April to get nominations in to The Printing Charity for its 2023 Rising Star Awards. Those aged 18-30 can apply for funding of up to £1,500 for training that develops their skills and knowledge beyond the training they are already undertaking in their current professional role. Pass it on…

I’ve had to rein in my excitement after seeing that the BPIF has undertaken an exercise to gather wages data to help members’ pay planning activities. I think that’s a great move. But can we take things a bit further? As BPIF economist Kyle Jardine explained to me, the activity so far has been to gather stats and put together a downloadable Excel document (for members only) providing an industry specific picture of previous pay patterns, recent changes and trending activities which could be deployed. It stops short of gathering actual pay data from print companies - something that I’ve long wanted to do as part of our Widthwise survey - because as we all know, it’s an extremely complicated situation. Anyone any ideas of how we could do it without going mad?

Yup, it’s once again time for me to ask you to ping your way to our annual Widthwise survey of the UK’s large-format print providers - just click on  https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/65CMDY3 and you’ll be whizzed through to the questions. All answers are confidential so no worries there - but the collected data will, for the 16th year, allow us to provide a grassroots report on the state of this sector. Last year 201 PSPs responded, making the subsequent report properly representative - and we’d love even more to take part this year. We’ll bring you the findings - independently analysed and free of charge - in the summer. Oh, and you may even win a prize.

Yup, it’s once again time for me to ask you to ping your way to our annual Widthwise survey of the UK’s large-format print providers - just click on  https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/65CMDY3 and you’ll be whizzed through to the questions. All answers are confidential so no worries there - but the collected data will, for the 16th year, allow us to provide a grassroots report on the state of this sector. Last year 201 PSPs responded, making the subsequent report properly representative - and we’d love even more to take part this year. We’ll bring you the findings - independently analysed and free of charge - in the summer. Oh, and you may even win a prize.

It’s the last day the Hunkeler Innovationdays in Lucerne today, where the focus has been very much on the theme of next level automation - such a key strategic consideration for so many in the print industry. It’s also the last day of EuroShop 2023 in Dusseldorf and I’m wondering if you’ve been? Given the size and scope of this retail trade fair and importance of the retail sector to ours, I assume some of you have. It would be great to hear whether you thought it a worthwhile visit, and if there are any key takeaways worth noting. You can probably anticipate what I’m about to say on that score - how do we get more of a spotlight on envelope-pushing print application possibilities at events that are not ‘ours’ but where there’s such a fabulous chance of wowing such a key customer-base?

Fespa’s decision to get rid of Printeriors as a physical part of the Fespa Global Expo and instead provide an online version accessible at a touch of a button to anyone in the interiors space seems a logical move to me. I’ve long held the view that what is intrinsically a print trade show is not the best place to try and entice non-insiders full stop - and that if we want to show off physical representations of what we’re capable of we should be going into the spaces already trodden by those we’re trying to reach. We also need to be showing more boundary-pushing offerings to grab attention - be that physically or online - don’t we?

Can you help? The BPIF is struggling to find a trainer to support with the delivery of apprenticeships within the sector. The federation is specifically looking for someone based in the south/south west/west region. Details are available on the BPIF website. If you think you might fit the bill please contact Karly Lattimore, MD BPIF Training.

79% of employees will quit due to lack of appreciation according to new stats from Zippia, and according to Scott Agnew, author of ‘Long Term Leader’, the answer is a new leadership approach focusing on empathy, tenderness and understanding. Now, I’m all for managers displaying those attributes, but when it comes to appreciation nothing to my mind talks louder than money - and the BPIF’s latest Printing Outlook survey (for Q4 2022) shows that a third of respondents reported that they had conducted a pay review in Q4, resulting in an average 5.2% pay increase. How does that reflect pay rises within your own company - and does your pay strategy prove you’re empathetic and appreciative enough of your staff to retain them?

With WTTB announcing its new range of coronation party merchandise and event memorabilia I’d like to hear from any of you involved in producing wide/large-format print for the occasion. It would be great to be able to have our own little celebration of those involved.

Where do we now stand on deinking wide-format digital inkjet materials? It’s a question we’ve no doubt all asked many times before and no doubt will continue to ask as the industry progresses, but news that Seigwerk is collaborating with various parties to deink plastic packaging waste is hopefully a sign that things are now moving at a quicker pace. Any idea of when we’ll see really serious moves regarding deinking capability across other - plastic-based or otherwise -  print waste?

I’m loving what KGK Genix is doing about trying to interest more youngsters in a career in print and the associated areas of retail design and visual merchandising. Running a programme with a local college that sees students understand all that’s involved in a prestigious live campaign - and getting on-site experience to boot - sounds a fab idea. Can we do something similar on a wider, sector co-ordinated scale?

Barbieri opens nominations today for its Excellence Award 2023, which are open to customers, partners and organisations within the extended Barbieri ecosystem (i.e. universities, research organisations) that work with those in the professional digital printing industry. Categories include business performance, innovation and research, and advocacy and trust - just thought that was an interesting range and wondering how many PSPs enter awards for categories other for actual print and/or environmental development.

A visit to a small town theatre with a fab curtained backdrop - hand painted not digitally printed - had me again wondering how many people outside of the obvious wide-format print client list know about its creative potential. How do we get our message out to that wider audience of potential new customers. I’ve many a time mooted the idea of a ‘pavillion of possibilities’ that we as an industry put together and can take to various fairs etc. to show off our capability, but can that be done?